Square will buy Twitter, Shopify will buy Snapchat, predicts NYU’s Galloway

In a special live Advertising Week episode of their Pivot podcast, New York Magazine’s Kara Swisher and New York University Professor Scott Galloway took on some of the biggest stories in media and tech Thursday afternoon. Swisher served up the topics and questions, and Galloway riffed. Among the episode’s most notable soundbites: • Regarding Trump’s new social media company (see “Donald Trump to launch social media platform called Truth Social,” from The Guardian), Galloway said, “This is going to be right up there with Trump Vodka”—i.e., a failure. The problem, as he sees it, is that Trump is “a terrible operator. He’s made money in entertainment, he’s made money in licensing, but he’s a terrible operator”—and launching a tech company is way more complicated than Trump realizes. Register for Ad Age Next: CMO at AdAge.com/NextCMO. • Regarding Facebook changing its corporate name (“Facebook’s metaverse rebrand is not something to celebrate, advertisers say,” from Ad Age): “This is a human shield for Mark Zuckerberg,” said Galloway. “I think it’s a smart move, frankly.” Presuming Facebook executes here similar to how Google did it with Alphabet, Zuckerberg—as the chief of the freshly branded parent—gets to rise above the fray and let the CEOs of the subsidiary companies, including Facebook, take the direct heat from lawmakers, regulators, etc. “They’re right now in a canyon, and there’s tsunamis of shit pouring down for them, everywhere,” Galloway said of Facebook. A new corporate brand umbrella with separate, non-Facebook branding can insulate Zuck from the endless shit storms. • Regarding the potential PayPal-Pinterest deal (see “PayPal is considering buying Pinterest,” from Bloomberg News via Ad Age), Galloway sees this as proof that content is now “a point of differentiation for other more profitable or more valuable businesses, whether it’s selling more handsets, selling more paper towels, or, quite frankly, getting you to use a certain payment platform. ... Content has become a point of differentiation, not its own business.” The PayPal-Pinterest news has put Galloway in the mood to predict: “It means Square’s going to acquire Twitter,” he said, “and it’s also going to put Snap into play. This is an attention economy, and the attention the media captures is worth more to fintech companies than it is to the investors of a pure-play media company.” Swisher asked Galloway who he thinks will buy Snap (parent of Snapchat). “Shopify,” he said. Register for Ad Age Next: Streaming at AdAge.com/NextStreaming. Subscribe to Ad Age now for the latest industry news and analysis.

Square will buy Twitter, Shopify will buy Snapchat, predicts NYU’s Galloway

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